Qom

We got very good deal with one taxi company and for 50 eur we got fast and safely to Qom. It is mentioned to be second holiest city after Mashad. You can see and feel it. Streets are crowded by women in black chador. The main reason is, it is required to enter Fatima-al-Massumeh shrine. In other places women could enter just in headscarves. It is very nice and really busy place. We saw people queuing to touch mausoleum of Fatima (and others). We also noticed more than usual handicapped people. As it is one of the holiest places in the region, there are many people also from neighbouring countries. We also talked to Bahraini family and Iraqi man. The father of the Bahraini family spoke good english, but others not so good, we managed though, using hands and google translate. The Iraqi man was doing his military service in there, as he had escaped from his country because of the war and living in Iran now. He was saying that he will not return to Iraq before the situation would go better in there. Until then he would help his country as much as he could, safely from Iran.


As it was almost the only site to visit, we just walked around and bought some herbal tea and plant essences. We didn´t find a hotel for our last night in Darband, Tehran, so we just spent one more night in Qom and took taxi in the morning to the airport. In general it probably took about as long going there from Qom as it would have from Darband. As we still wanted to go and see around the area there we just had a day trip there, visited the places we wanted to and came back for the night. This is also something to consider as hotels in Darband are not so cheap, though the quality would reach to the western standards probably.